Shall We Close Up?

In the night the empty halls,
Encased by grief and stifling walls,
House the husks of mortal hope,
Slumping bodies, fraying rope.

In a room an open heart
Beats a weak and paltry pulse.
Doctors, frantic, slowly scrape
Calcified and concrete crust.

Sitting down or standing up,
Husband, gutted, holds a cup,
Paces in the quiet room,
Sweats against the coming doom.

Past the time for closing hours,
Anesthetic wearing thin,
Each try wrung of all its powers,
“Shall we close up, let it win?”

Fields of the sun, gouged and grim,
Lay quivering with chaotic vim.
Here Celestial host battered,
Countless Angels’ glory shattered.

In the garden the serpent slid
False dreams into mortal minds,
Miscarried truth before ‘twas free,
Broke the golden crown of life.

Waves of murder, streams of blood,
Conjure morbid, raging flood.
Swelling up with mortal pleasure,
Pain and sorrow without measure.

Skyward in the brilliant dawn,
Man builds for himself a name.
Tower vaulted high by brawn,
“Shall we close up, disperse their fame?”

The surgeon shuffles through a door,
Scans the sorrow of the floor,
Finds the spouse with reddest eye,
Utters softly, “she may yet die.”

Some miracles are bound by grief,
Wrapped, as diamond, with base stone,
Lift us up to bring us low,
Taunt with tendrils of sweet breath.

Nothing left but time and night,
Clutching hand and drinking fright,
Emotions dancing like a jig,
Visions of a hole to dig.